Anthony - thank you for taking the time to respond. I respect you for that and running the tests.
What I mean about the oil isn't so much that the darkness is from the oil, but rather the oil coated dirt particles (and some tiny amount of oil) stick to the secondary filter MORE than "dry" particles through the paper filters. I really think a scientific analysis of the deposited material will solve this, not purely visual, (or worse, web photos!)
I also wonder if there is a method to determine how much of the dirt is from around the filter, rather than through it. I have stated publicly here, my biggest complaint with Amsoil planar air filters is a very imperfect edge seal.
Lastly I meant what I wrote about the passed dirt not showing up in my oil analysis', for examples my Volvos and my Toyota all have/had Amsoil oil filters. The older 245Ti gets 10,000 mile oil changes per Amsoil's max recommendation. Si, Na and wear metals (Fe, Pb, etc) are NOT high. The 96 855 went 20,000 miles on the same oil, 15K miles were with an Amsoil air filter - elemental analysis was extremely low.
I really like your testing. You are 1000% ahead of the average garage joe. I actually solute you!
But - you have doubts about mfr claims, I have doubts about your testing.